James Lileks on scents:

You want to know another scent I like? The faint salty mildewed smell of Mexican tourist destinations. It’s a smell that says nothing matters right now and there will probably be tequila later.

One of the more winsome spam e-mails I’ve received recently:

Loveliness Sir We confirm that 2th February malaise Please advise as necessary. I wish you joy!

From Girl Meets God, by Lauren Winner:

I tried to write a novel about Southern Judaism. The narrator was a young woman who had moved to Israel and learned Hebrew and become an expert bargainer in the shuk, but who eventually had to leave her husband and move back to North Carolina because she could not bear to be away from the mountains of Buncombe Country another hour. It was very melodramatic. The protagonist spent a lot of time sick to her stomach. For pages and pages I couldn’t make her do anything but throw up bile. I took this as a bad sign and put down the novel.